Friday, May 11, 2012

Photo Friday: Distressed Photos Edition

Do you see the guy at the left's "Black Power" fist? The back of this photo says "JUST FRIENDS" in all caps,in ballpoint pen.

Good morning! This Photo Friday comes to you from two albums of an African American family that I found at a thrift store in Clarksville. I think they were fifty cents apiece. My friend Kelsey was adamant that I check the place out before they inevitably closed, as it was pretty much a long term yard sale housed on mismatched shelves in what should have been a storage building. Was I glad I did! Macabrely covetous of two other albums she'd bought previously, which were filled with seventies' era memento mori Polaroids of eldery relatives in caskets, at funerals, I was surprised to find another two sticky-paged, silk-rose covered scrapbooks for sale on this second trip, and took those home with me.

The age and condition of most of the photos was poor... there seems to be some heat and water damage to some, and in spite of the sticky pages, a lot of the photos were double-affixed to the album by masking or scotch tape. I think the "distressed" look of them makes the photos even more interesting. The one above, scratches, obscured faces, fading and all, looks like some kind of art print, almost.

Here are some of the ones I liked the best. Take a look, won't you?

There are several photos of this young man in the service, some of them just different sized duplicates of this same print. Someone must have been very proud of him. When I think of the way my grandmother organized her photo albums and just kind of had everything tacked in willy-nilly, I think of this guy's grandmother doing the same. "Oh, make sure you get the prints of Marcus in there! Get all the pictures of Marcus in this one album!" He looks handsome in his hornrims.

The little boy in short pants with his mom to the back right of this photo...and what kind of hat is the woman in front wearing?

Several photos were of church, and I actually cannot BELIEVE I didn't scan the photo of the a pastor in his robes playing an electric guitar. It reminds me so much of one of my all time favorite songs, "Take a Trip" by Reverend Utah Davis. If church were like this, I swear I would be in the front pew every Sunday:

The next guy is equally proud of his hair, his soul records, and his model cars, as he has all three on display in this photo:

He thinks he's Al Green...and he may not be wrong...

Remember last week when we were talking about nightclub photos? Check it OUT!

This Count Basie-looking guy and his date...Do you see the gentleman's socks? His slick suit and pencil mustache? How about the gal's taffeta striped skirt and stacked heels? I wish ANY of these photos had captions...where were they and what a good time did they have? Note the piece of scotch tape waywardly placed just the right of the man's head. Obviously a stylistic choice.

Dude does not even care.

What is there to consider first about this photo? The guy's parasol? His striped pants and baleful expression? Or is it that fact that he's just sitting there splay legged like it's NO THING. Heat exhaustion has taken Claude's "giving a damn" right away from him. And that's ok.

Last but not least:

I love this moment that all little girls have at a childhood birthday party. "Whatcha got there, sweetheart? Oooh, it's a Betsy doll! And didn't you ask for one of these? This is great!" It's funny how parents have conversations with their children sometimes that are more pointers to guide the kid's thoughts than actual dialogue. The look on the pretty little girl's face says it all though! Notice their many plants planted in coffee cans, the boxed carton of ice cream on the table (that's a lot of ice cream!), and the proud dad's skin-tight shirt and wide leg pants. The shirt says "Jr. High Track", yet the sideburns say this guy is not attending the local middle school. Still, he looks sharp!

Which one do you like best? Have you ever heard of post-Victorian, not-the Enquirer people taking photos of friends/family members/acquaintances at a funeral in their freakin' casket? Do you have any whole-album collections of family photos like this?

Have a great weekend, hit a-l-l them estate sales, and I'll see you on the other side!

These are WONDERFUL! My older relatives used to always take photos of relatives in their caskets. And then shots of the graves covered in dirt and flowers. It always freaked me out when I was flipping through family albums at my grandmother's house and I'd come across a relative lying in state. The family photo albums have been sorted out and scattered to the wind for the most part and it makes me wonder if those photos got trashed ASAP.

AND the graves?! That is serious. Imagine I opened this one up and I was like "OH! JEEZ!" Mindful of the fact that I regularly look up all kinds of ooky spookies on the web, I don't know why "seeing it where I shouldn't've" caught me so off guard! But, on the other hand,I guess it's a way of remembering people. I've definitely seen gravesite photos from, say, when my grandmother went back to Cape Cod to visit relatives and swung by the cemetery to pay respects...but I just don't know that I'd do it! Too bad about the photo albums being scattered, and ditto on my grandad's side...I wish someone had let me have them!

My mom has a photo album with an entire section of funeral procession on foot and casket photo shoots from the "old country" of Yugoslavia, Croatia to be exact. They freaked me out as a kid. Now, I find them pretty interesting. Then my aunt on my dad's side kept the tradition going and to this day you can find her snapping away! Freaky.

Oh, wow! And from Croatia! I'm telling you, I feel equal amounts of "wow, creepy!" and "wow, neat!" when I see stuff like that. I'm going to have a "no photography" clause written into my will, just in case.

Oh, these are wonderful! Love the snappy dressers at the nightclub!! It's heartbreaking to see these lovingly assembled family histories abandoned on thrift store shelves, but I'm sure whoever made it would be pleased to know it ended up in good, appreciative hands.

That picture of the guitar-playing pastor sounds awesome; you should scan it in, I'd love to see it! I, too, would be the most devout church goer if only it were just like that ;)

i love these! i think the guy with the records tacked on the walls is my favorite. i LOVE finding whole albums of pictures. I'm always jealous of the vendors at the flea market who have full boxes of one families photos! where do they get them??